Facebook farce: `Band, baja and baraat`, but no bride

Phagwara: He came here with "band, baja and baraat" but went back "berang" (blank) when he found neither the bride nor anybody else from the girl`s side to play host.
Sources close to the groom today said that this strange story of a Facebook relationship turning faceless and causing loss of face to the boy`s family unfolded here yesterday.

Paramjit Ram of Gobindpur village in Nawanshehar district started a relationship on the social networking site with a girl from the area four years back, when he was living in Greece.

Ram returned to his native village about a year back and kept up the relationship, online and through meetings with the girl. He even visited her home and met her family, sources said.

Both decided to marry and September 11 was fixed as the date for the wedding.

The groom got wedding cards printed with the name of the local marriage hall where the ceremony was to take place.

Then, on the appointed day, dressed in the finery of a dashing `dulha`, he came with a 100-strong `baraat` to tie the knot with his beloved.

Sources said that first the marriage party was asked to reach a locality here from where they were asked to proceed to a wedding hall on GT Road before eventually being directed to another hall, `Lal Kiran Palace`, on the Phagwara-Jandiala road.

When the marriage parry finally reached the second wedding hall, they were shocked to see nobody from bride`s side waiting for them there.

Neither was the bride anywhere to be seen. In fact, the venue was not even decorated for a wedding.

When the groom then rang up the girl, he found her mobile phone switched off.

Thereafter the groom and the `baratis` went to the local Satnampura police station and reported the entire matter to the officials there.

When contacted, Satnampura SHO Karnail Singh said they had simply narrated their story but did not lodge a formal complaint in the matter.

Meanwhile, neither the girl nor her family members could be contacted for their side of the story.